3 Simple Steps to Driving Traffic to Your Website (Part 1)

In a survey I ran recently to discover the most pressing needs of small business owners, 44% of responders reported a desire for driving more traffic to their websites. It’s a hot topic that can seem overwhelming but is actually much simpler than you may think. Over the next few blog posts, we’re going to talk about the 3 steps that you can follow whenever you need a boost in website visitors, starting with what could be the most important step:

Website Traffic Tip #1: Give people a reason to visit

First and foremost, let’s clear up one simple fact: most people won’t visit your website out of the kindness of their heart. Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s the truth; we’re all so busy, with so many demands on our attention, that you really have to stand out and give people a great reason to click back to your website. You can do this several ways, including:

1) Offer a f.ree gift (otherwise known as a free giveaway, special report, etc.). Give your ideal clients something they can really use, like a few hot tips, a fill-in-the-blank template, a content-rich audio interview, etc. In exchange, of course, they will provide you with their contact information so you can keep in touch with related offers.

2) Pique their curiosity. Perhaps you have a 3-step system for creating solutions for your clients, and you write about the first step in an article that is then published in various article directories online. If you reference in your Author Resource box that the other 2 steps are covered on your website (either on your blog or in your f.ree gift), giving a link they can visit, you can bet that those who are interested in what you have to say will click back to your website to learn more.

3) Find a way to create buzz and excitement on your site. Perhaps you have loaded an interactive quiz onto your website that people can take to discover their ideal mate or their dream job or whatever it is that your ideal clients are searching for. (By the way, you can create comprehensive quizzes on http://www.assessmentgenerator.com/main.html that you can then publish on your website. I haven’t used this myself but you can take advantage of a free trial to see if it’s right for you.) There are three parts to using this method successfully: a) Try to make it fun for users, b) use the quiz to highlight their needs and then lead them into your solutions, and c) give them a way to share it with their friends/colleagues/etc. (You can see an example on my website at http://writeassociate.com/website-quiz/.)

The beauty of small business is that we can quickly implement changes that will make our websites more irresistible to potential visitors. But before you head off to start making revisions, ask yourself this question:

Now that you have website visitors, what do you do next?

If you use these tips to help get people to your website, here’s the next big question: how do you convert those passive visitors into paying customers? There’s a simple yet definite technique to creating websites that sell, and once you learn it, you can use it to create your own profitable website many times over. I’ve created a fill-in-the-blanks template around the 5-step system I use regularly, for both myself and my clients, to create a profitable website, often in 90 minutes or less. Because I feel this information is absolutely vital to any business owner’s online success, I’m going to reveal this process in a f.ree webinar next week, where I will walk you through each step of creating your own profitable website. Learn more and grab your spot in this limited-space webinar now at http://writeassociate.com/free-teleseminar/.